Roborock S6 MaxV

amazon Roborock S6 MaxV reviews

The very expensive Roborock S6 MaxV does a great job of vacuuming and mopping, but its AI-based obstacle avoidance technology isn’t as reliable as its price point.

If you’re going to spend $749 on a robot vacuum, you want it to be much more perfect. The Roborock S6 MaxV can vacuum and mop and does both excellently. It is also the company’s most powerful vacuum cleaner, with a suction power of 2,500Pa. Under the hood, it boasts a Qualcomm APQ8053 processor with AI-powered obstacle avoidance designed to keep the MaxV away from common household items that might move onto other vacuums of robots. But in testing, it failed to match at least one common stumbling block: dog toys. So while the S6 MaxV is a versatile, sure-fire floor mopping robot, in this price range, we like the $799.99 Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI for its superior AI-based obstacle avoidance technology, duration, longer battery life, and unique home monitoring capabilities.

Features and Specifications

Standing 3.8 inches tall and 13.8 inches in diameter, the S6 MaxV is one of the larger floor mopping robots we’ve tested.

At the top, there’s a Clean/Power button in the middle, flanked by the Dock and Spot Clean buttons. It has a raised LiDAR navigation sensor, similar to the sensor on the $500 Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI and the $500 Proscenic M7 Pro, two other hybrid/vacuum robots. At the bottom, it has a main brush, an edge sweep brush and some cliff sensors to prevent it from falling down the stairs.

The S6 MaxV boasts an advanced obstacle avoidance feature called ReactiveAI designed to prevent it from getting caught in things, a common spot for robot vacuums. It uses two cameras and on-device artificial intelligence image processing to detect obstacles, estimate their size and location, and automatically navigate around them. The cameras work together to capture detailed images at up to 30 fps. The system then uses a complex neural network trained on thousands of real-world images to process the images captured by the robot’s camera.

Roborock says the system can recognize and bypass common indoor hazards that are just 2 inches wide and 1.1 inches high, including things like electrical cords and slippers. It can even automatically identify and avoid pet waste instead of rolling back and forth, as we’ve seen with some less expensive models. In the interest of your privacy, images taken and processed by the robot will be “immediately deleted,” Roborock said.

Images are never copied, stored, or sent to the cloud. The processing happens on the device.

Besides that, the S6 MaxV offers many other features you would expect in a high-end robot vacuum, including voice and app control, scheduling, and area cleaning. In the Roborock app (available for Android and iOS), you can save up to four maps if there are different levels in your home and create virtual No-Go and No-Wipe Zones so that the robot will avoid certain areas. There’s also a Clean History section that shows the details of each job, including a map of the robot’s path. You have five cleaning modes to choose from Balanced (which you will probably use most of the time), Gentle, Quiet, Turbo, and Max.

The S6 MaxV has a 5,200mAh battery that, according to Roborock, allows for three hours of continuous cleaning in Quiet mode without the included cleaning system. In testing, it vacuumed for 116 minutes in Balanced mode before dropping to 19% battery and returning to the charging dock. I tried running it again to see how much longer it will last, but it says the battery is too low, and it will continue cleaning when fully charged.

That’s a good result, crushing the $950 iRobot Roomba i7 + (60 minutes) and narrowly beating the Proscenic M7 Pro (103 minutes), but can’t match the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI, which has better battery life than any mopping robot or vacuum cleaner tested (170 min).

Establish

The S6 MaxV doesn’t come remotely, but you can control it with the Roborock app or your voice through Amazon Alexa. A Roborock spokesperson told me the company is working on getting certified to work with the Google Assistant.

Roborock recommends placing the robot’s charging base against a wall 1.6 feet from objects on either side and 4.9 feet from anything and using double-sided tape to secure it.

To set it up, you need to download and install the Roborock app and create an account. From there, you turn on the robot and hold the Spot Clean and Dock buttons until it says “Reset Wi-Fi,” and the Wi-Fi indicator starts blinking slowly. You then open the Roborock app, tap the plus icon at the top right, select the S6 MaxV from the list, and follow the setup prompts to connect to Wi-Fi.

Setting it up to work with Alexa is pretty straightforward. Activate the Roborock Plus skill in the Alexa app and log in with your Roborock account credentials. From there, Alexa will start searching for new devices. If Alexa doesn’t find it, make sure your phone is connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the robot and try again. After you connect it to Alexa, you can use your voice to start and stop cleaning.

Vacuum and avoid obstacles

When the S6 MaxV is up and running, it creates a map of your house in the Roborock app, on which you can see its exact cleaning path. The app also shows how long it has been cleaned and how much area it has covered (there doesn’t seem to be a way to change it to a square set). When it works, it moves quickly and efficiently, forming straight lines.

The S6 MaxV isn’t the quietest robot vacuum I’ve tested, but it’s not too bad. Roborock says it runs at 67dB in Balanced mode (or the equivalent of classroom chatter, according to OSHA). In Max and Turbo modes, it’s louder. Meanwhile, the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI has a maximum volume of 67dB.

If you have carpets in your home, you’ll want to enable the Carpet Mode feature in the app’s Vacuum Settings menu. When turned on, the robot will automatically increase the suction when it detects the carpet. That is an interesting feature that you can also find on the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI and Proscenic M7 Pro.

During testing, ReactiveAI’s obstacle avoidance was hit or missed. During the first full test run, the robot never got stuck and returned to the base station when it finished cleaning. When it detects an obstacle, it will put a label on the map. It incorrectly labeled a brown extension cord as pet waste, which isn’t a problem but funny.

To put its obstacle avoidance technology to the test, I purposefully placed the dog toy around the room while cleaning and got stuck twice. For comparison, the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI excelled in this test, detecting the toy it’s the way each time and changing direction accordingly.

Additionally, the S6 MaxV got stuck on the base of my couch. Another time I got a notification on my phone that the main brush was stuck.

Aside from these issues, the S6 MaxV did an excellent job at sucking debris, dirt, and hair (both people and pets) from my floors. After just one pass through my house, my floors look a lot cleaner.

In testing, it performed equally well on hard floors, low pile carpets, and medium piles. Weaker robot vacuums — like the iLife A9, which has a suction power of 1,000Pa — struggle to clean all the debris from the average piled carpet, but the S6 MaxV has no such problem thanks to its 2,500 suction power Pa strong.

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Wipe

Roborock says that you should vacuum your floors at least three times before mopping to avoid excessive buildup on the mop in the user manual. To activate mopping mode, you need to remove the water tank, fill it with water, and then slide it back into the robot. You then moisten the washable cloth, place it on the cloth holder, and then slide the holder onto the water tank. When it is successfully installed, you will hear a click, and the robot will say that it is in mopping mode. The mop frame has side buttons for easy removal. When you remove it, the robot will return to its normal vacuuming mode.

Like most other mops, including the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI, the S6 MaxV cleans with water. There is a note to avoid cleaning products or disinfectants to avoid damaging its water tank. If you’re a fan of Germany and looking for a robot vacuum that offers support for cleaning solutions, not just water, check out the iRobot Braava Jet m6.

The S6 MaxV has a large 10-ounce water tank (compared to the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI’s 8-ounce bucket) and is the largest mop holder of any robotic mop I’ve tested.

Unlike the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI, the S6 MaxV does not automatically avoid the carpet when mopping. However, you can set a No-Wipe Zone in the app to prevent your carpet from getting wet. You navigate Map Settings > No Move Zone > No Mop Zone and draw a square over the rooms and carpeted areas. I created a No Mop Zone in my bedroom and office, and the robot successfully avoided them.

On the other hand, you may have to set the entire room to a No Mopping Zone if you have hard floors and carpets in the area. For example, I have wooden floors and an area rug under the coffee table in my living room. I tried to create a No Mop Zone only on the carpet of that area so that the robot will mop the floor around it, but it doesn’t work. It is difficult to estimate the location of an area rug on a map and pinpoint the No Mopping Zone exactly. You can do it, but it’s a bit cumbersome and will probably take more than one attempt.

If you have hard floors and carpets in your home, I recommend the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI; it does a great job of automatically avoiding carpeting.

The good news is that once you create a No-Wipe Zone, it’s saved in the app, so you don’t have to do it again. If you make a mistake, you can edit your Region at any time. You can also set the water to high, low, or medium and adjust the flow for each room. It is set to average by default, which I think is fine.

In terms of cleaning performance, the S6 MaxV did a great job cleaning my floors. After the first pass, they look and feel a lot cleaner, although I noticed a few leftovers. The robot still had a lot of battery left, so I ran it again. After those two treatments, it removed all the dirt and stains from my floors, leaving them nice and shiny.

Maintenance

Every robot vacuum requires some maintenance, but the S6 MaxV isn’t as essential as the others. It’s not capable of emptying the trash by itself (like the Roomba i7+ and S9+ can), but Roborock only recommends cleaning the dustbin and main brush weekly and the filter washable every two weeks.

Normally, you have to empty the dustbin of a robot vacuum cleaner after each use. The S6 MaxV has a large 15.5-ounce dustbin (compared to the Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI’s 14-ounce bin) that’s large enough to allow for some cleaning up before it needs emptying.

Within the app, there’s an option called Maintenance in the Settings menu that tells you how much time the filter, main brush, and side brush have left before they need to be completely replaced. It also displays the time remaining until you need to clean the sensors.

Compare and conclude

The Roborock S6 MaxV has many of the bells and whistles you’d expect in a premium 2-in-1 vacuum and mop — at the right price. It supports app and voice control (although it only integrates with Amazon Alexa for now) and lets you set virtual boundaries and cleaning schedules. Its powerful suction will keep your floors dirt-free, and its excellent mopping ability will make them shiny.

The Roborock S6 MaxV is similar to the Ecovacs Deebot Ozmo T8 AIVI by Editors’ Choice in terms of design, features, and price. I recommend spending the extra $50 and buying the second, which offers automatic carpet detection when mopping. A novel video butler feature lets you see your home as it cleans, has better battery life, and superior obstacle avoidance based on AI Technology.

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a more affordable vacuum/mop hybrid robot with strong suction, check out the Proscenic M7 Pro. Its mopping is decent, but it boasts 2,600Pa suction power — 100Pa more than the S6 MaxV — and costs less than $250.

Advantages

Vacuuming and mopping the house

Strong suction power

Large water tank and with cleaning plate

Integration with Amazon Alexa

Allows scheduled cleaning

Virtual boundary support

Defect

Expensive

Faint obstacle avoidance technology

Does not automatically avoid carpet when cleaning